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The blind man was left alone with his women. He was not to be put off his pleasures, and went on talking aloud. He began with its being no use to go after women, ended with the double-bed, and, getting the impression that Fischerle brought far too little understanding to these matters, began again at the beginning and laboriously described in detail some of the hundred and more women who were being kept in readiness for him. He allotted an incredible backside to each, gave their weight in hundredweights and increased it each time. When he got to the sixty-fifth woman, whom he selected as an example for the sixties, her backside alone weighted two hundredweight. He was bad at arithmetic, and liked to stick to a figure once he had named it. All the same, two hundredweight seemed to him a little exaggerated. 'What I say is gospel,' he asserted. 'I don't know how to tell a lie, it's always the same since the war!' All this time, Fischerle had enough to think of. He must forcibly keep down the mounting thoughts of chess. There was no interruption he feared more than this growing lust for a game. It might be the ruin of his business. He tapped the little chessboard in his right coat-pocket which served at the same time as a box for the pieces, heard them jump excitedly within, mumbled: 'You be quiet now!' and tapped again, until he was tired of the noise. The hawker was thinking of drugs and confusing their effects with his own desperate need for sleep. If he found the parcel in the church, he would take out a packet or two and try. He was only afraid that in a drugged sleep ofthat kind he'd dream. If he had to dream, he'd sooner not sleep at all. What he wanted was a real sleep, with people to feed but not to wake you, at least not for a fortnight.

Then Fischerle saw the Fishwife disappear into the church after signalling vehemendy to him. He seized the blind man by the arm, said, 'Of course you're right!' and to the hawker, 'You stay here!' and pulled the former over to the church door with him. There he told him to wait and dragged the Fishwife into the Church. She was in a high state of excitement and couldn't utter a word. To calm herself a little she pressed the parcel and 250 schillings into his hands. While he was counting the money she took a deep breath and sobbed: 'He asked me, was I called Mrs. Fischerle !' 'And you answered ...' he screeched, quivering with terror lest she should have wrecked his whole business by a stupid answer; she had wrecked it, for sure, and was pleased with herself, the silly goose! You've only got to suggest to her that she's Mrs. Fischerle and she goes out of her head! He never had been able to stand her, and that great donkey there, what had he to go and ask her that for, he's met my wife ! Just because she's got a hump, and I've got a hump he has to think we're married; he's tumbled to something after all, and now I'll have to cut and run with this wretched 450 schillings, what a filthy trick! "What did you say?' he screeched a second time. He forgot he was in church. He was usually respectful and cautious in churches, for his nose was very marked. 'I — wasn't — to say — anything!' She sobbed between each word. 'I shook my head.' The money he had thought lost rolled like a weight off his heart. But the terror she had caused him, made him fly into a passion. He would have liked to knock her block off. Unfortunately he hadn't the time. He pushed her out of the church and snarled in her ear: 'To-morrow you can go and sell your fdthy papers! I'll never read one again!' She understood she had lost her job with him. She was in no condition to calculate what money she was losing. A gentleman had taken her for Fischerle's wife and she hadn't been allowed to say anything! People see that she belongs to him, but she mayn't say a thing. What a blow! what a fearful blow! In all her life she had never been so happy before. All the way home she sobbed without a break: 'He's all I've got in the world.' She forgot that he still owed her the twenty schillings, a sum which in bad times she had to run round for a week to collect. She accompanied her refrain with the image of the gentleman who had called her 'Mrs. Fischerle'. She forgot that every one called her the Fishwife, anyway. She sobbed too because she didn't know where the gentleman lived or where he was going. She would have offered him a paper every single day. He would have asked her again.

Going back to the hawker, he said: 'To think that a businessman has to trust such scum!' 'How right you are!' declared the other, who excepted himself as a businessman from the scum. 'What's the point of living?' — the four hundred schillings which he might lose made him tired oflife. 'For sleeping,' answered the hawker. 'You and sleep!' at the thought of the hawker asleep — he who lamented his insomnia all day and every day — devouring laughter shook the dwarf. When he laughed, his nostrils looked like two wide open mouths; underneath them two small slits, the corners of his mouth, became visible. This time he had got it so badly that he had to hold his hump as other people would their belly. He put his hands under it and carefully absorbed every jolt that shook his body.

He had barely laughed himself to a standstill — the hawker was wounded to the depths of his soul by the scepticism with which his projected sleep had just been received — when the blind man reappeared and vanished into the porch. Fischerle threw himself upon him and tore the money out of his hand, was amazed to find die sum exact — or hadn't he told him to ask for five hundred after all, no, four hundred — and asked in order to disguise his excitement: 'How'd it go*' 'I ran into someone in the swing door, into a woman, I'm telling you, if I hadn't been holding this parcel so stupidly I'd have bumped right up against her, such a fat one she was! Your business friend's a bit off it.' 'Why? what's the matter with you?' 'You won't mind my saying so, but he's got it in for the women! Four hundred's a lot, he said. Because of the woman, he said, he understands and doesn't mind paying. Women are the cause of all the trouble. If I'd been allowed to speak I'd have told him straight, the bloody fool! Women! Women! What else would I live for if it weren't for women? I bumped into that one a treat, and he makes a scene!' 'That's the way he is. He's a bachelor for pleasure. I won't have any complaints, he's my friend. I won't have you talking to him either, otherwise you'll hurt his feelings. You don't hurt a friend's feelings. Have I ever hurt yours?' 'No, I give you that, you've got a heart of gold.' 'That's it, you come back to-morrow at nine, see? And not a word, see, because you're my friend! We'll show them if a man can be done down by buttons!' The blind man went off. He felt such a deep well-being that he had soon forgotten the peculiarities of the business friend. With twenty schillings you could do something. First things first. First things were a woman and a new suit, the new suit must be black to match his new moustache; you can't get a black suit for twenty schillings. There was always the woman.

As for the hawker, injured and curious as he was, he had forgotten both caution and his habitual cowardice. He wanted to surprise the dwarf in the very act of changing the parcels. The prospect of going over an entire church, even a small one, to find the parcel, did not tempt him in the least. By popping up suddenly he would get at least an idea of where it was, for the dwarf would be coming away from it. He met him in the doorway, took his parcel, and went off without a word.

Fischerle followed him slowly. The outcome of this fourth attempt was not of much financial significance; it was a matter of principle. Should Kien pay out this hundred schillings as well, the resultant profit coming to Fischerle alone — 950 schillings — would be larger than what he had already received as his reward for finding the wallet. During the whole of this organized fraud at the expense of the book racket, Fischerle had not for an instant lost sight of the fact that he was dealing with an enemy who, only yesterday, had tried to fleece him of everything. Naturally enough you look after your own skin. If you're up against a murderer you have to murder yourself; if you're up against a crook you have to be crooked too. Though there was a particular twist to this affair. Maybe the creature would only insist on having the reward money back again, maybe he'd plunge even deeper in mean trickery — people often get impossible ideas into their heads — and risk his whole fortune on the game. Anyway his whole fortune had once been in Fischerle's possession, so he'd a right to get it back from him. Maybe, though, the good opportunity was over now. It isn't everyone who can get ideas into his head. If the creature had a character like Fischerlc's, if he cared as much for getting back that reward money as Fischerle did for chess, then business would be brisk. But can you ever tell what sort of a customer you may be dealing with? Maybe he only talks big, maybe he's only a poor sap who'll begin to regret his money and will say suddenly: 'Stop, that s enough!' He may do that and may lose his chance of getting back the reward money for a mere hundred schillings. How should he know that he's going to have every penny taken off him and not get a thing in return: If this book racket has a spark of intellect, and you've got to hand it him, he does give that impression, he's got to pay until he hasn't anything left. Fischerle began to doubt if he had as much intellect as all that; not every one had the logic, which he had developed at chess. He needs a man of character, a man of character like himself, a man who'll go through with things to the bitter end; for a man like that he'd pay out gladly, a man like that could be his business partner if he could only find him; he'll just go as far as thedooroftheTheresi-anum to meet him, he'll wait for him there. In any case, he can always double-cross him later on.

Instead of a man of character, out trotted the hawker. He stopped short, horrified. He hadn't expected to run into the chief. He'd heen smart enough to ask for twenty schillings more than the sum stipulated. He clutched at his left trouser pocket where he had stuffed his earnings — they couldn't be detected — and dropped the parcel. For the moment Fischerlc cared not at all what happened to the goods; he wanted to know something. His employee had crouched on his knees to pick up the parcel; to his astonishment Fischerlc did likewise. Once on the ground he reached for the hawker's right hand and found the hundred schillings. That's nothing but a blind, he thought. He's frightened for his precious parcel, but why the hell didn't I take a quick look inside it, it's too late now. Fischerle got up and said: 'Don t fall over! Take the parcel home and at nine sharp to-morrow be ready in the church with it! So long.' 'Here, what about my commission?' 'Excuse me, my memory' — accidentally he was speaking the truth — 'here it is!' He gave him his percentage.

The hawker went off ('To-morrow at nine? That's what
you
think') into the church. Behind a column he sank once more to his knees and, deep in prayer lest anyone should come in while he was at it, he opened the parcel. It contained books. His last doubt vanished. He'd been done. The real parcel was somewhere else. He packed up the books, hid them under a bench, and began his search. Praying all the time, he crept round about the church and, praying, looked under every bench. He was thorough; the opportunity was not one which would quickly come again. Often he thought he had the secret, but it was only a black prayerbook. At the end of an hour he had acquired an implacable hatred for prayerbooks. At the end of two hours his back ached and his tongue hung limply out of his mouth. His lips continued to move as if he were murmuring prayers. When he had finished he began again at the beginning. He was too clever to repeat his actions mechanically. He knew that i£ you've overlooked a thing once, you overlook it again, and changed the order of his actions. All this time few people came into the church. He listened intently for unusual noises and stood stock still when he heard one. A pious old woman held him up for twenty minutes; he feared she might discover the sacred secret before he did, and watched her intendy. So long as she stayed there he didn't even dare sit down. Early in the afternoon he had no notion left how long he had been searching, but stumbled, zigzag, from the left to the third row of benches on the right, and from the right to the third row of benches on the left. This was the last order of search which he had thought out for himself. Towards evening he collapsed somewhere on the floor and fell into a sleep of exhaustion. He had achieved his ultimate aim, but long before the fortnight was up, that same evening when die church was locked up, the sacristan shook him awake and threw him out. He forgot the real parcel.